Curly-Tailed Animal Pendant (100–800 CE): Art, History and Details

Curly-Tailed Animal Pendant (100–800 CE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

A favored Initial-style subject is a charming animal whose curly tail -- its most impressive feature -- may derive from a monkey’s. Its other traits vary considerably, causing it to be identified as everything from a dog to a duck. Initial-style gold ornaments represent Panama’s oldest metalwork. Since metal technologies appeared suddenly and fully developed in Panama, it is likely that they were introduced from the outside, probably from Colombia to the south.

Object facts

• Title: Curly-Tailed Animal Pendant
• Date: 100–800 CE
• Culture: Panama, Initial style
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: gold
• Dimensions: Overall: 1.8 x 4 x 2.7 cm (11/16 x 1 9/16 x 1 1/16 in.)
• Collection: AA - Intermediate Region
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1943.288

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Foote, Helen. "Pre-Columbian Pendants from Panama." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 30, no. 10 (December 1943): 149-152.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.